A/N: Yes, I know I'm making Hermione seem like a female version of Neville. Give me some leeway for characterization, here. It does get better, I promise. She's not going to be a wimp forever... Oh, and find the V for Vendetta quote and you can have a cookie.
Left Behind: I didn't plan on bashing your ship any more throughout the course of this fiction, but I might make the effort to go out of my way and include some more "Snape is evil" lines if you would like.
Warning: Imminent relatively strong violence.
"Bellatrix Lestrange," she gasped, barely audibly as her mind entered a new level of shock. Her hand slid slowly to the front pocket of her robes where her wand was located. Hermione fingered the handle of the wood lightly, waiting for the opportune moment when she would remove it from its sheath.
Bellatrix smiled, "Clever girl." She gently removed the hood and mask from around her features and walked several paces towards where Hermione stood. With a sly grin on her face, she looked over Hermione's appearance, basking in the fear and the apprehension that radiated from her body. "I've got a couple of questions for you, so if you don't mind," she motioned towards a chair by the fireplace, "I'd like to have a talk with you."
"I don't think so," Hermione responded and whipped out her wand. Pointing it expertly at Bellatrix, she spoke defiantly, "Expelliarmus."
She laughed, deflecting the spell with a counter-charm, "You're going to have to do better than that." She lifted her own wand and with a flick of her wrist, disarmed the other witch. Hermione's wand mercilessly clattered to the floor and rolled behind a sofa nearly five meters away. Hermione's eyes widened as she tried to think up a different way to get out of the common room and get help.
Bellatrix directed her attention to the handful of Death Eaters scattered around the room. "Leave us," she said in a slow drawl. As the men turned to exit, she added, "Hammond," one of the men stopped and turned around, "go find the student who escaped before and bring her back under a silencing charm. She's probably cowering in a closet somewhere, shouldn't be hard to find." The man nodded and went to retrieve the girl.
Hermione swallowed hard. "You're not going to get away with this," she stated bluntly.
"Is that so?" Bellatrix asked, clearly amused by the girl's statement. She took the girl firmly by the arm and began to walk her over to the chairs surrounding the fireplace. "On the contrary, my dear, I believe I will be getting away with this and much more." She motioned to the empty chair, one that was conveniently free of dead bodies, "Now sit."
Hermione sat on the edge of an ottoman, as far as she could get from the bodies. She covertly glanced behind the nearest sofa, hoping desperately to catch a glimpse of her wand. I wonder how long I can stall before a teacher finds out what happened in here, she thought idly, snapping her gaze back to Bellatrix as the older woman cleared her throat.
"Horcruxes," she stated simply as she pushed a corpse off of her chair and took a seat. Hermione flinched. Bellatrix smiled, "I suppose I can assume that you know what I'm talking about?"
She nodded, face contorted into a look that depicted neither interest nor fear. "What about them?" Her voice was shaking which made the Death Eater smile.
"Harry seems to have a knack for taking things that don't belong to him," Bellatrix insisted, leaning back into her chair. "It has come to my attention that he has one of my master's horcruxes in Harry's possession, am I correct?"
Offering no verbal reply, Hermione simply turned her head to the side, avoiding eye contact with the woman. Bellatrix rose silently from her chair and walked towards Hermione, advancing slowly until she stood mere inches from the girl. The dull throbbing on the left side of her face came as a shock and the girl took a moment before she realized that Bellatrix had hit her. A metallic taste slowly began to fill her mouth, blood.
"Answer the question," Bellatrix snapped, growing agitated with the girl. Hermione nodded in response and bit at her bottom lip in nervous preparation for the woman's next question: "What does it look like and how can I find it?" Bellatrix stated simply, leaning down to Hermione's level as she stared deeply into the girl's eyes.
She shrugged and shook her head violently from side to side, "I don't know." The words barely left her mouth before Bellatrix's fist connected with her face again.
"Liar," Bellatrix stated as though it were a fact rather than an accusation. "Don't worry, I will get the information I'm looking for." She turned on her heel and ran a hand through her ragged hair, "What condition you are in when I am done receiving that information is entirely up to you."
Hermione's eyes began to water involuntarily as the realization dawned on her: I'm going to die here. All for some bloody horcrux Harry didn't bother to tell me about. She continued to stare at the floor, resolving that she would not look her killer in the eye unless she had to.
Bellatrix continued, "Are you ready to cooperate?"
She let out a long sigh, "No." Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. Teachers, anyone in the corridors can hear me. I'm as good as dead anyway, I might as well start screaming. "Help! Somebody, please help me!" she managed to cry out before Bellatrix slapped a hand over her mouth.
Her face contorted into a deranged smile as she laughed, "Your insolence is outweighed only by your stupidity, Miss Granger. Silencio." With that, she took hold of Hermione's robes and dragged the girl over to the closest wall which happened to be a few feet away from the fireplace. Hermione attempted to resist, screaming silent protests and flailing her limbs uselessly as she was overpowered by the stronger woman. Bellatrix removed her perfectly manicured hands from their grasp on Hermione's robes and instead closed her fingers tightly around Hermione's neck.
Clenching her hands around the girl's airway, she continued to speak, "You know where he's hiding it. My associates are tearing apart his bedroom as we speak, not to mention anyone who gets in their way. They will find it, I have no doubt."
Hermione gasped for breath, receiving no air in return for her struggle. She squirmed and pushed against the woman's hands with her own. Damn it, Harry, where did you hide it?
"Why are you holding out?" Her response was a strangled gasp. "Tell me where it is, and I'll let you go," Bellatrix said in a soft voice, her mouth very close to Hermione's ear. Her head was swimming, swirling with the feeling that came from being deprived of oxygen. Finally, Bellatrix released her grip. "Fuck it," she mumbled as the girl sank to the ground, hands clasped around her own throat in an attempt to soothe away the pain.
Sitting with her legs sprawled out limply on the ground, Hermione breathed deeply for a few moments, waiting for the woman towering above her to begin another attack. A few minutes passed and out of curiosity, she looked up to find Bellatrix gripping her brow in frustration. "I really thought that you'd tell me where it was, I honestly did," she said, shaking her head. The woman smiled, "Doesn't matter. I was always more of a hands-on person anyway."
A few seconds of contemplative silence passed before Bellatrix buried a boot into Hermione's stomach. Her position shifted slightly, allowing her attacker access to the rest of her body which Bellatrix took full advantage of. Another pause, and she placed the heel of her boot into the center of Hermione's vulnerable chest and began to exert pressure. When the first rib cracked, Hermione let out a full-fledged scream which was also silenced by the charm. Bellatrix, however, noticed this reaction and smiled, "I can stop whenever you want." Hermione's mouth remained tightly shut, making no further attempts to voice a protest as she watched the woman withdraw her boot before kicking her again, again in the stomach.
She couldn't move, couldn't speak without feeling the pain shoot through her chest and abdomen. She curled into a ball and rested her back against the stone wall, attempting to shield herself from any more of Bellatrix's torture. The kick to the face came as a shock, causing Hermione's head to snap back. Had she been able to speak, she would have let out a moan as she felt her face begin to swell and bleed from the sheer force of the blow. She sat there and shook her head, taking each blow as if the pain no longer affected her anymore.
"How about now?" Bellatrix asked, panting from the exertion of her physical torture. She knelt down and watched as Hermione found the strength to drag her body up from the ground, making their eyes level with one another. "Are you ready to talk now?"
Hermione called on every ounce of dignity that remained in her body as she drew a breath and nodded. In one swift moment, any evidence of a smile was wiped clean from Bellatrix's features as Hermione spat in the woman's face.
She snapped. "Why you little..." Pulling the girl's head back by a handful of hair, Bellatrix drew her wand from her pocket and pointed it at Hermione's throat. Pausing for a moment, she reconsidered and took a deep breath, trying to make good use of the rage that was building within her. "I want to hear you beg for mercy. When you're an inch away from death, I want to hear you scream," she snarled and lifted the silencing charm. Hermione's breathing became heavy and pained as she fought to remain conscious. "Crucio," Bellatrix shouted, pointing the tip of her wand directly at the other witch's torso.
She screamed. Her voice was hoarse from strangulation, yet Hermione managed to scream louder than she thought possible. The pain that surged through her body was like a white hot flame, devouring every scrap of her flesh and leaving no inch of her body untouched. She writhed on the ground, eyes and teeth clenched, hoping to rid the pain from her body to no avail. Her head snapped back and connected with the hard stone floor but the pain did not register as her body was overcome with the curse.
After what seemed like hours, Bellatrix flicked her wand to the side, providing instant relief to the girl on the ground. Hermione curled onto her side and began to shake violently as if she were freezing cold. Her hands moved rapidly, clenching and loosening as if the sensation was foreign to her. In the minutes that she had endured the curse, the pain cancelled out every other feeling, every other sensation in her until she was consumed by the burning torment of unrestrained torture. She choked back her sobs, if only for the moment, and looked her attacker dead in the eyes. "Are you ready to talk now?" Bellatrix asked in a voice one would be expected to use with a petulant five-year-old child.
Hermione shook her head in disgust and Bellatrix knelt down so that she was only a few feet away from the girl. She took a series of long breaths to regulate her breathing. "Go to hell, bitch," she spat, the words seeping like venom through her blood-soaked lips. Shit, I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have said that. Urgh, my head. I think I'm going to pass out...
She could see a fire begin to burn in Bellatrix's eyes as soon as the words left her mouth. "Get up," the Death Eater said. Her voice had dropped an octave and the frustration within her words was evident. Hermione tried to move but found her limbs unwilling to comply. She struggled to lift her legs, only to have her shoes scuffle uselessly against the floor. "I said get up!" Bellatrix shouted. Grabbing a handful of Hermione's robes with each fist, she raised the girl to her feet and smacked her mercilessly against the stone wall.
Hermione's vision was blurred by the throbbing pain in her head leaving her unable to focus on her attacker. Within seconds, Bellatrix had her by the throat again, this time cutting off her airway with more force than before. Hermione gagged and tried to draw a breath, only to be subdued by the death-grip Bellatrix's hands had exerted on her swollen throat. Her vision steadily grew worse and she could feel the blackness begin to set in as she struggled in vain to take a breath of air...
"We've got it!" an unnamed Death Eater exclaimed as he descended the staircase before the boy's dormitory with the assumed horcrux in hand.
The hold on her throat was immediately released as Bellatrix twisted her head around to identify the source of the interruption. Hermione coughed and spluttered as the hands were removed from her throat. She tried to lift her arms to massage her aching neck only to find that her muscles still refused to comply. She hung limply against the wall, pinned by Bellatrix's arms, unable to retaliate, unable to call for help, unable to do anything but ensure that she kept breathing. Breathe, just breathe. Anything to distract from the pain.
Bellatrix, seeing the horcrux, grinned, "Of course, an expensive item like that you'd be sure to keep in the family for a long time." She turned her attention back to the girl she had pinned to the wall, "Let me finish up here and then we'll go, alright?" A few men mumbled in agreement, too intimidated by the woman to voice any complaints. Hermione's eyes fluttered open as she fought to remain conscious. "Next time you try to outsmart me, girl, there's going to be hell to pay," Bellatrix snapped, loosening her hold on Hermione's robes while she took a step backward.
By the time Hermione spotted the other witch's wand, it was too late.
"Sectumsempra!"
The shock of the impact alone should have been enough to kill her. She was thrown back against the wall with a sickening thud, the pain sending shockwaves through her body. All over her body, Hermione felt as though knives had scraped away at her flesh, leaving long, deep cuts. Her eyelids drooped and the rest of her body followed suit, her slack form slid gracelessly down to the floor leaving her limbs sprawled out, useless. She could feel the blood as it poured from every open wound on her body, spilling out on to the floor, taking her life with it. The last thought that passed through her mind as she lay motionless on the cold floor was, 'Next time?' accompanied with the bitter laughter that followed Bellatrix out of the common room and into the night.
A/N: So did I do a good job with that? Tell me in a review. Oh, and next chapter things (like plot.. heh) will begin to progress a bit.